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Medidata Launches Acorn Artificial Intelligence Company

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Medidata Solutions, Inc. recently announced the launch of an artificial intelligence company — Acorn AI. The launch is a remarkable step by the company toward speeding up the digital transformation in life sciences across its platform. More specifically, this AI development is an effort by the company to personalize and optimize clinical trials.

Rama Kondru has been appointed as the chief information officer of Medidata and the chief technology officer of Acorn AI.

More About Acorn AI

Banking on Medidata’s standardized clinical data storehouse, and operating on its pioneering platform, Acorn AI is set to become one of the premier AI companies in the field of life sciences.

Acorn AI is designed to generate actionable insights by making data fluid across the entire lifecycle, ranging from R&D to commercialization. Using the company’s AI proficiency, customers and partners of Medidata can tap into the power of data to deal with the most complex diseases.


This new business is backed by Medidata’s cumulative R&D investments in technology and data science, and acquisitions of data analytics companies. The operation of Acron AI will be fueled by the Medidata platform, which comprises 17000 clinical trials and has the capability of analyzing 45 billion patient records from 2 million providers.

Market Prospects

Per Research and Markets, the global market of artificial intelligence in life sciences is projected to witness a CAGR of21.1% during the forecast period of 2019-2024. Considering the abundant market potential, the inception of Acorn AI is strategically timed.

Per the article, AI is being increasingly applied in drug discovery, personalized medicine, biotechnology and clinical trials. With rising healthcare expenses in almost all parts of the world, the pharmaceutical industry has been investing in extreme R&D initiatives over the past few years. The key reason behind the accelerated growth of AI in the healthcare industry is the abundance of data in the life sciences sector.

Recent Technological Developments by Medidata

Of late, Medidata has been entering alliances with other companies in order to expand the reach of its cloud-based platform and machine-learning solution.

The company recently inked a deal to partnership with Cognizant to provide life science clients with innovative solutions that leverage the market’s leading cloud platform with high-quality business and technology services. This equips pharmaceutical, biotech, medical device companies, contract research organizations (CROs), sites and investigators with digital capabilities to facilitate a fast start to clinical trials, simplify operational complexities and drive digital transformation.

Last December, the company announced that Cala Health, a neuromodulation platform company that specializes in developing wearable therapies for chronic disease, is adopting the Medidata Cloud to centralize management of a large observational study.

Around the same time, the Castleman Disease Collaborative Network (CDCN) discovered new patient subgroups, based on previously unknown proteomic signatures, using Medidata’s Rave Omics, which is a machine learning-based solution. These discoveries demonstrate the value of precision medicine by offering innovative insights into treatment response and potential new drug targets.

Price performance

Over the past year, Medidata's shares have improved 12.5% compared with the industry’s rise of 9.4%.

Zacks Ranks and Key Picks

Medidata currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Some better-ranked stocks in the broader medical space are Varian Medical Systems, Inc. , Penumbra, Inc. (PEN - Free Report) and Amedisys, Inc (AMED - Free Report) . Notably, each of these stocks currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Varian’s long-term earnings growth rate is projected at 8%.

Penumbra’s long-term earnings growth rate is estimated at 20.9%.

Amedisys’s long-term earnings growth rate is projected at 19.7%.

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